I'm surprised by two things. First of all by how many people have been blowing the whistle on the corruption and lack of prudent control on USA's financial markets, for years. My prime source has been Catherine Austin Fitts, who started pointing out the problems 10 years ago. In the last 4 years she's become more and more vocal, and has been active in suggesting ways we can protect ourselves and our communities from this sort of malpractice.

Secondly, on these forums I'm amazed by how little discussion there has been about what is happening. It seems to me that:a) People don't understand the markets.b) People don't understand that politicians have encouraged both the corruption and the cover up.c) Americans don't understand that their currency has just been massively devalued.d) People in other parts of the world don't realise that America extracts a FINANCE TAX from the rest of the world so that part of the COST of the USA's failed policy is paid by people like me.

The Republican Party is so much the CAUSE of the problem that the party should have no further future in US politics. GW Bush should have destroyed the Republican part forever. Sadly, the political process of the USA is so badly broken that isn't what's happening.

The Democratic Party is so much a co-conspirator in the problem that they should struggle to get themselves elected. Neither party is credible.

Therefore, who should American's be voting for? That's what I mean when I say the process is broken. There are no alternatives that are obvious because the Democrats and the Republicans have for as long as anyone can remember maintained a "two party club". I say "two party", but really I see them as one party with two wings and no effective opposition. That is the problem.

To have an OPEN FUTURE every country needs an open political process with REAL alternatives. I don't know of any country that has got this entirely right. Certainly not the USA, Canada, UK, Australia or New Zealand, the countries that I know best.

The FIRST STEP is getting a political system that works is to get rid of winner takes all voting at elections. Proportional voting can be achieved in many different ways, and will always produce a government with some independent voices. The ability to recognise truth and to discuss the necessity for change is always identified and promoted by these voices on the fringe. It's that input of fresh ideas; sometimes unwelcome ideas, that keeps the political process alive.

We have tried to do that in NZ. We've been halfway successful. We do have a process with several minor parties, and they have had the effect of making the two major parties look firmly at reality. For us the future of politics is partly open. In the USA, the future of politics is mostly closed.

Today President GW Bush is pleading with senior members of both parties to support the proposal made by Henry Paulson to provide economic support for businesses which find themselves in possession of contracts which in the present financial environment have doubtful value.

The key problem is timing. They need a solution today for a problem that's been years in the making. The Paulson plan proposes to do what's easy to do today, to feed the sharks at the top of the feeding chain, so that sharks remain part of the financial ecology. I believe that's entirely wrong.

But I also believe that without massive political and financial support the USA is about to start a major depression. That's not desirable. Everyone knows it. Economists also know that by pumping money into the system you can keep it going, but the cost is inflation and encouragement of the unrealistic practices that created the crisis in the first place.

So what to do? In my view the financial stimulus should go to the bottom of the feeding chain. The stimulus provided by government should be matched by private sector funding. The key is to reduce the debt being held by Americans. But the help also needs to be directed to the people who are most at risk of losing their homes. So on a case by case basis, the extent of an individuals debt needs to be identified, their assets valued, and their ability to service their debt out of income assessed. According some agreed principles and rules, some people are bankrupted, some people get principle reductions on their loans.

In this way the financial stimulus gets to the heart of the problem, reducing the debt. BUT that's going to take time, and it's likely that so much time is simply not available.

So we're likely to get a quick an dirty "fix" that rewards the people who created the crisis and profited from it. A mixed solution, help with the cash flow offered to the big boys in the short run, and correction of the debt problem in the looooong run.

The worst feature of this is that the POLITICAL MASTERS who are ALSO responsible for creating the problem get to play hero and come to the "rescue".

For all the rest of us. One year, maybe two years of reduced income, increased costs and perhaps struggling ourselves whit debt we can't afford to sustain.

My wife has pain and burning down her right leg which is causing her a lot of discomfort, restriction and uncertainty similar in some ways with the discomfort, restriction and uncertainty of our present credit mess.

The pain can be relieved somewhat with medications and ointments but it doesn't do anything about her problem. Her problem is with her spine. It is just the symptons that are in her leg.

The government is stepping in only to help temporarily with the symptoms which are in the credit areas.

The actual problem is a lack of ethics from top to bottom.

It is a long term problem and the long term solution are only in the areas of our almost universal acceptance and world wide celebration of the technique of solving problems by lowering our standards which will not work on this actual problem.